'TECHNOLOGICAL MARSHALL PLAN'

[Vvonstruen at aol.com]

The second key change in the political character of global society is 
occurring through the rethinking and restructuring of the role of the world's 
key international institutions - the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, and the 
WTO. All of these bodies - in differing degrees - are recognising a number of 
changed elements in the character of international relations. Castells cited 
regularly from the findings of a recent UN millennium report released by its 
Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, A 'TECHNOLOGICAL MARSHALL PLAN'
One of Castell's strongest political recommendations was his call for a 
'Technological Marshall Plan' - a programme of First World intervention in 
Third World 'info-development' on the same gigantic scale as that which 
occurred during the original Marshall Plan aimed at the post-war 
reconstruction of West Germany.
Castell's main rationale for this Plan is the need to implement a strategy of 
development aimed at modernising third world Information and Communications 
Technology (ICT) infrastructure and human capital formation on the basis of 
massive Western governmental, multi-national and NGO aid. In addition to 
building ICT infrastructure, this intervention would also trigger a classical 
Keynesian stimulus of demand and lead to associated forms of industrial and 
economic development.
Much of these ideas were presented as a Keynote address at the Economic and 
Social Council of the United Nations, New York, delivered by Castells on 12th 
May, 2000. In this speech Castells defends such a gigantic action on the 
basis of a model for growth, which he calls 'info-development':
"What could be the potential outcome of an informational development 
strategy? The most important ou
This is a theory of economic 'leapfrogging' - a strategy whereby developing 
nations can use the new information technologies to leap beyond the difficult 
steps and constraints of traditional models of industrial development, 
particularly the requirements of economies of scale and low-cost mass 
production.
The new technologies are more adaptable and can be more pervasive in a 
developing context. The only problem is breaking through the vicious cycle of 
deprivation where developing nations remain excluded because they do not have 
the minimum threshold of IT infrastructure and human capital to kick-start 
this strategy.
This is where Castell's big bang theory comes in:
... the main problem to tackle in the implementation of global 
info-development is how to inject resources in the first place in areas with 
no hope of yielding returns in the short term.
There is a need for a Big Bang, a massive, sudden investment in technology 
and human resources, on a scale large enough, and in various areas of the 
world, to prime pump the process of informational development.
These resources can only come from where they are, from the rich countries, 
from the largest corporations, from the centres of innovation and learning, 
and from the international organisations funded and supported by the 
wealthiest countries in the world. (Castells, 2000: 10)
Some of the strategies that Castells recommends are already occupying the 
world political stage. For example, the world-wide protests against the 
Bretton Woods institutions is gaining momentum by the day. In addition, the 
G7 countries, at their recent retreat in Okinawa, Japan, initiated a 
high-powered Task Team on IT to investigate ways in which to speed up the 
technological development and inclusion of the Third World within the 
information society.
And lastly, the UN has begun pursuing the strategy of forming a broad global 
compact as part of its new millennium political strategy.
These new developments will have to be closely monitored in the near future 
to see whether they constitute a truly new global politics and whether they 
empower the Third World in its struggle against globalisation's destructive 
might.
* innovate: to create something new
** trajectories:  routes, paths
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carnoy, M. and M. Castells (1999). 'Globalization, the knowledge society, and 
the network state: Poulantzas at the millennium', International Conference on 
Nicos Poulantzas, Athens, Greece.
Castells, M. (1996). The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. 
Volume 1. The Rise of the Network Society, Oxford, Blackwell.
Castells, M (1998) 'Possibilities for Development in the Information Age: 
Information Technology, Globalisation and Social Development', paper prepared 
for the UN Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva.
Castells, M (2000) 'Information Technology and Global Development', keynote 
address at the Economic And Social Council of the United Nations, New York, 
12th May.